


cats don't have names

by HeySorryToBeAlive



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abused Harry, Biracial Harry Potter, Bisexual Harry Potter, Black Harry Potter, Detective Harry Potter, Drarry Christmas Fic, Gay Draco Malfoy, Harry and his bad luck, M/M, Muggle London, Muggle/Wizard Relations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-20 06:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16550378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeySorryToBeAlive/pseuds/HeySorryToBeAlive
Summary: 2006.Nobody knew where Harry Potter could be. Some people wrote fanfictions about him. Almost a decade had passed since the War and people were trying to build something new.The truth is, Harry lived in the muggle world and wrote books (mainly children's books) and was called Gael Lesendi by his Muggle friends.The truth is, Harry had become a famous detective in the wizard world without revealing his real identity, calling himself Bagdad Jones and being nicknamed The Cat by the press. Some people wrote fanfictions about The Cat.Draco Malfoy has hired The Cat to investigate about Gael Lesendi, for some reason and Harry now had to write a report before Christmas. Shit.Maybe Draco Malfoy was not the only person curious about Gael Lesendi. Shit.[it looks serious, but the truth is, this fic could be summarized like this : "harry, being gay and sweating : h-" or "harry be like : while y'all were being heterosexual, i wrote fics" even if there's drama (shout out to @oliwellwhocares for these summaries, go read their fics)]





	1. prologue - the Cat

That night, the sky was as dark, repulsive and scary as racism. If he wasn't the best, The Cat couldn't have seen anything : he couldn't have seen those three men laughing and talking to some girl they had found attractive in this club, he couldn't have seen their mouths to close to her face, he couldn't have seen the disgusting thoughts inside their eyes. 

 

He waited. He would get this young woman somewhere safe, beat the hell out of those guys and do his job. He was that powerful. He waited, waited, and waited, all his incredibly tense body always ready to jump on them if they dared to go too far - but what is 'too far' really ? He felt like their laugh was already 'too far'. He wanted her out of this mess. But he had to wait. His time would come eventually. 

 

• • • 

 

Harry gave this fanfiction a kudo because of the first sentence and wrote a comment about the lack of trigger warnings in the story's description.


	2. first part - before christmas, or how harry fell everyday a little bit more

_"[...] I could swear I know you, Cat. But I guess looking familiar to everyone is the perks of being nobody."_

 

• • • 

"Time to get in trouble."


	3. chap.1 - the hatred towards whitewashing

Being Gael Lesendi was as easy as breathing really, because Gael Lesendi was nothing more and nothing less than Harry, but more precisely than an Harry who hadn't had to be the Saviour of the Wizarding World : he was a young black man (well technically biracial, but he always thought the society had to get rid of this ugly word which only existed because of slavery and colonialism), an activist, a writer, someone who always apologized for being loud but couldn't help it, someone who didn't like being gazed at but didn't want to cry each time someone dared to look at more than one minute (unlike the real Harry), someone who had strange nightmares about zombie flowers (and not nightmares about his loved ones dying one after the other, not ptsd like the real Harry did). 

Being Gael Lesendi was Harry at his best.

Being Bagdad Jones was Harry doing his best. 

But being Bagdad Jones was as hard as trying to find his breath after an anxiety attack, because being Bagdad Jones was being more than Harry, more than one person, more than the universe. "To be Ulysses one has to be Nobody" said his business card. However, one had to be a white, straight-looking abled man to be Nobody. That's what Harry was currently seeing in his mirror and his heart ached when he touched his new face for the day : being Bagdad Jones meant being an oppressor, and for this reason any fanfictions about the Cat talking about him saving some young woman in distress, about him a Charming Prince would never be realistic. Bagdad Jones could have never been efficient if he looked like an unproblematic man : he had to look like a standard. 

Indeed, people noticed marginalized people, even in a big, multicultural city like London for a lot of reasons. When they were white, they noticed and stared at people of color because they were trying to justify their racism, they wanted to hear an English that wasn't proper, they wanted to see some exotic clothes that proved those folks didn't want to integrate, they wanted to snicker at them and to fetishize them. When they were men, they noticed and looked at women - or people who seemed to be women - just because they knew they could consume them - and alas, as a man Harry still had to regularly debunk everything he had learned and assimilated to be a good ally for women ; becoming Bagdad Jones had actually helped him in doing so, by creating distance between his persona and society's norms. When they were straight and/or cisgender, they noticed and stared at non-straight people to find something threatening, a reason to fight (the simple fact that they existed was a betrayal and a threat against the patriarchy, especially if they were queer and/or trans women)   
In fact, people noticed people they knew they had the right to attack and Bagdad Jones couldn't afford to be noticed, to be attacked because he was a doer, he was the one who attacked people's secrets, people's conspiracies, people's insecurities. Bagdad Jones was a nightmare, and it disgusted Harry, and it made him proud - indeed, Jones was a useful persona, he was an (insufferable, though) detective thanks to whom bad guys were arrested/caught/spotted at the end of the day, fanfictions were at least right about this. 

 

Bagdad Jones was somewhere he shouldn't be : in the new sex club in town called [i] Avada Kedavra and Jones [/i] - not Harry - laughed. He could understand why someone would want an orgasm as powerful and striking as Death - Harry couldn't and wanted to puke. This brothel wasn't like the others. Jones had already went in brothels to follow cheating husbands and disgusting politicians mixing work and pleasure and it was basically always the same thing : young girls almost naked, dancing wearily near poles, men having dirty laughs while looking at them, stinking sweat and alcohol, large leather (but cheap and a little bit ruined) seats. This club was different : the women were still young, like in every club, but almost fully clothed, dancing a little bit but mostly acting. Acting how ? Like they were afraid.   
Men came in this club especially to have power over girls (and boys, sometimes, but internalized homophobia made those men more discreet). Jones's job that night was to find Vector Withinwings, who had a Veela fetish just because of his name, to take pictures of him and to record him saying that he had an habit of buying girls who "looked Veela" to him. 

Withinwings had currently a woman on his lap and was stroking her hair gently. The woman was a petite brunette with long curly hair and hazel eyes that seemed familiar to Jones, but he didn't know why. When Withinwings wasn't looking at her, her face showed how she was completely disgusted by him but she was obviously very attracted to the money he was holding in his hand, and that was why she behave like a sweet girl in love with her sugar daddy. Bagdad snorted. Of course she was, Withinwings was one of the richest bachelors in the Wizarding World after all, and had a chair at the Wizengamot. He could afford to have a Veela fetish, most of people could only pay for some filthy pictures on the Magusweb. For this, Jones had been hired by Ronan Scabior, another member of the Wizengamot, a liberal, who wanted to end Withinwings' career, a conservative too popular for his liking. Jones still thought it was kind of evil of Scabior to do that, when the latter had try to convince Bagdad that it was necessary and for good reasons, Jones had only shrugged : he only cared about money, action and using magic on morally very-grey-near-black (and this was an euphemism) people. Nothing else. 

[i] Omnis Vocare [/i], Bagdad whispered, so he'll have records of what would be said - he had created this spell on his own and was proud of it. Giving Pensieve memories to clients seemed too unresponsible, because it was too personal and subjective : showing people how he viewed the world could give away his real identity or informations he wasn't getting paid to give. He disliked using Muggle records, because it made people assume he was Muggle and he hated when people assumed things about him and also because it wasn't efficient enough in crowds, [i]Omnis Vocare [/i] recorded only the voice of the target, nothing more. It was perfect and unique. "Just like me", he thought with a sly smile. 

"Can I sit here", Jones asked to Withinwings.   
"It depends", Withinwings answered, looking at him with suspicious eyes. "I'm not into guys, are you ?"   
"The only thing I'm into is success", Jones said, his open face (the face he had built and worked on for hours) telling Withinwings he couldn't be dangerous. 

Withinwings laughed briefly and didn't seem to want him to leave, even if he hadn't relaxed yet. 

"Well, that's something we have in common. I suppose you're not here for nothing, what can I do for you, boy ?" 

That night, Bagdad looked like a handsome thirty-year-old man, not bulky but impressive in his own way, with deep brown eyes which had a little bit of blue in them somewhere, dressed like someone rich enough to pay five girls in a row but not enough to be ostentatious. And he probably looked like a boy near Vector Withinwings, who was already fifty or sixty and had a wrinkly, mischevious, charismatic face. 

"Oh, well", Jones uttered, pretending to hesitate, "I have heard some things about you. Here and there".   
"Such as ?"   
"People say you have the power to satisfy.... some specific needs you have. And that you have the will to help the satisfaction of other people's desires, when they are the same as yours. I was wondering if... you know.... I could attend some of your parties or something." 

Withinwings' smile grew as he stopped petting the girl on his lap and asked her to leave them. 

"Quiet and travelling rumours about me are often well kept secrets", he finally said, his voice lower than before.

Bagdad knew he had won. 

"Mischief managed", he murmured.

 

* 

 

Harry entered in his home and took all his glamours away. He wanted to get in his bed and to read some dumb fanfictions about himself (as Harry Potter, this time) in which he was whitewashed and described as a plain white white boy who wore plain t-shirts all the time and loved being angry and silly, while drinking some really hot and sugary tea. He was a shower when he heard three owls arrive. Each had a letter for Bagdad Jones : one was from Ronan Scabiour, one was from the Ministry and one was from... Draco Malfoy, apparently. He hadn't seen that name for years. 

He sighed. He couldn't wait to be Gael Lesendi again.


End file.
